Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will concentrate my efforts on the Garda. I will be making statements and I would appreciate it if the Minister would give me a written reply. I have asked a lot of fair questions about the vaccines and I have never got a reply. Shop assistants are asking me when they will be considered. They have been on the front line for quite some time. Many people on islands off west Cork are infirm and are not able to leave the island. Will a doctor travel to the islands to look after them?

I encourage the Minister to increase the number of people allowed at weddings and funerals in the upcoming announcement because people are trying to get married but not in an unsafe way.

I wish to speak on behalf of the 300 Garda members in the Cork west division and their families. What is their priority for vaccination? Since the beginning of the pandemic, gardaí in west Cork and throughout the country have stepped up to the plate when called upon. They have put up with changes to their working lives and conditions and changes to work patterns, and they have policed checkpoints and enforced all Covid restrictions they have been asked to enforce. That is despite being poorly equipped from the outset with PPE gear that could only be called second rate at best. In most cases they were among the last to receive Covid equipment as it came on stream.

Gardaí got on with the job while working in deplorable conditions, even taking Covid into account. We are all aware that the stations in which they work in west Cork are cramped and there is no hope of social distancing. Each day they provide the quality policing service needed in west Cork which, despite all the odds, they have managed to do through goodwill. They did so in the belief that by putting themselves and, indirectly, their families in harm's way their endeavours would have been acknowledged and their health and safety taken into account when the vaccine roll-out took place.

I am cutting into my colleague's time. I would appreciate if they were seriously considered for vaccination.

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